MoMent

“Democracy needs to be born
anew every generation, and
education is the midwife”
(Dewey 2008, 139).
More than three hundred colleges and universities have been involved in
various aspects of the project, and nearly one hundred have received grant
support. At the center of its concerns is the interrelatedness of the three core
purposes of liberal education: advancing knowledge and understanding;
promoting the well-being and actualization of the learner; and acting
responsibly toward the surrounding community in all its diversity. To
explore this interrelationship, BTtoP has commissioned a series of research
monographs, journal articles, and books; funded campus-based research
assessing student development; hosted conferences; supported innovative
campus civic programs and student-led conferences; and convened think
tanks. Throughout, it has been a nurturing influence conceptually as well
as financially. Importantly, over the years it has also seeded a network of
practitioners and scholars who continue to sustain progress.
It is through the collective power of multiple entities inside and
outside higher education that there is hope of achieving a more capacious
and transformative expression and practice of civic learning and democratic
engagement. John Dewey understood the connection when he said,
“Democracy needs to be born anew every generation, and education is the
midwife” (Dewey 2008, 139). And former Congresswoman Barbara Jordan
understood that democracy is not simply sustained by a set of eloquent
aspirations but requires as well a capacity for generating collective action:
“What the people want is very simple. They want an America as good as its
promise” ( Jordan 2011). Together we can make it so.
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